Foreclosure activity at record levels

U.S. foreclosure filings hit a record in the first half, a sign that job losses and falling property prices deepened the housing recession, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

More than 1.5 million properties received a default or auction notice or were seized by banks in the six months through June, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said today in a statement. That’s a 15 percent increase from the year earlier. One in 84 U.S. households received a filing.

“People are losing their jobs, seeing their income go down and are underwater on their mortgage,” Richard Green, director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said in an interview. “It’s a toxic combination.”

RealtyTrac®, the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its Midyear 2009 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows a total of 1,905,723 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 1,528,364 U.S. properties in the first six months of 2009, a 9 percent increase in total properties from the previous six months and a nearly 15 percent increase in total properties from the first six months of 2008. The report also shows that 1.19 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 84) received at least one foreclosure filing in the first half of the year.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 336,173 U.S. properties in June, the fourth straight monthly total exceeding 300,000 and helping to boost the second quarter total to the highest quarterly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in the first quarter of 2005. Foreclosure filings were reported on 889,829 U.S. properties in the second quarter, an increase of nearly 11 percent from the previous quarter and a 20 percent increase from the second quarter of 2008.

“In spite of the industry-wide moratorium earlier this year, along with local, state and national legislative action and increased levels of loan modification activity, foreclosure activity continues to increase to record levels,” noted James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “Unemployment-related foreclosures account for much of this increased activity, and the high number of borrowers who find themselves owing more on their mortgages than their homes’ are now worth represent a potentially significant future risk. Stemming the tide of foreclosures is a critical component to stabilizing the housing market, so it is imperative that the lending industry and the government work in tandem to find new approaches to address this issue.”

National foreclosure filings in the U.S. continue shattering records, propelled by mounting unemployment and continued erosion of home values.

Filings were reported on more than 336,000 properties in June, the fourth-straight month to see the total topping 300,000, according to RealtyTrac’s latest foreclosure report released Thursday. That helped boost the second-quarter’s tally by 20% from the year-earlier period, making it the highest quarterly total since the report’s first-quarter 2005 launch. When counting this year’s first half, one in every 84 homes was slapped with at least one filing, ranging from default notices to bank repossessions.

It’s just more bad news as the limping real-estate market struggles for stability. Foreclosures can command discounts as high as 60%, a drag on surrounding home prices and appraisal values. The data also show that the government’s frantic efforts to keep Americans in their homes haven’t been completely effective, and moratoria crafted to slow foreclosures seem to simply delay the pain. Even worse, with unemployment at a rate not seen in a quarter century, there’s no relief in sight.

345 Responses to Foreclosure activity at record levels

The wave of foreclosure filings in New Jersey swelled in Atlantic and Cape May counties in June from the previous year, but retreated in Cumberland and Ocean counties.

Filings increased 52 percent in Atlantic County and nearly 17 percent in Cape May County, while dropping 9 percent in Cumberland County and 28 percent in Ocean County in year-over-year comparisons, according to data released today from RealtyTrac, the California-based provider of foreclosure market information.

In New Jersey, the number of foreclosure filings fell to 4,333 in June, about 13 percent less from the previous year. Nationwide, filings increased by 33 percent in that same period, affecting 336,173 properties.

Suffolk ranked third in the state and Nassau fifth in the percentage of households that got a foreclosure-related filing in the first half of the year, according to RealtyTrac, which tracks the issue nationally.

The report showed one out of every 155 households, which also includes apartments, was directly touched by the foreclosure crisis in Suffolk, while in Nassau, it was one of every 166 households. That translates to 3,512 Suffolk properties and 2,762 Nassau ones getting foreclosure-related filings, a 3 percent drop from a year ago, but a 63.6 percent increase from the last half of last year, when the activity was artificially low because lenders had to start giving a 90-day notice before initiating foreclosure proceedings, the data show.

My wife and I have sold all of our four previous homes for more than we paid for them—sometimes a lot more.

We’ve been pretty lucky. We’ve never overpaid much for a house, we’ve always bought in good school districts and decent neighborhoods, we’ve lived in neighborhoods where prices soared during the real-estate bubble, and we’ve been hurt but not decimated by the bursting of that bubble.
…
When I constructed a very basic cash-flow model for our home-buying history—selling price minus purchase price, renovations and repairs—it showed a roughly 3.5% annualized return on investment, from 1991 through the summer of last year. That’s when we sold our last home and bought our current one.

Then things got ugly. If we were forced to sell our current home, which I estimate has lost 5% or so of its value in our 10 months of ownership—despite the more than $20,000 we’ve made in improvements—our cumulative return over the years sinks to approximately 2% annually. And if prices keep falling in our northern New Jersey neighborhood, as is likely for a while, that return will shrink even further.

So do I regret owning a home? Heck, no. It’s not a get-rich scheme, and Americans never should have viewed it as one. Owning a home has given my family a series of anchors to cling to as we’ve moved around the country for my job. It’s allowed us to live in pleasant neighborhoods where it would have been tough to find a rental house. And paying down a mortgage is a form of forced savings, which should help us in retirement.
…
Another reason home ownership isn’t the road to riches: Most houses—especially the old ones my wife and I favor—are money pits.

Consider the house we owned in Verona, N.J., from 2001 to 2004. We bought it for $335,000 and sold it for $455,000 near the height of the real-estate boom. That’s nearly an 11% annualized return. The only problem was that we sunk $45,000 into renovating the bathrooms, spiffing up the kitchen, refinishing the floors and the like. The result: Our actual return was less than 7%.

Contrast that with our current house. Counting the money we’ve sunk into it and its decline in value, I estimate close to a 10% loss on our investment since we bought it last year. Prof. Mayer predicts house prices in the New York metropolitan area will fall an additional 10% over the next couple of years.

That’s the brutal financial reality of home ownership in today’s market. But the consolation is this: I really like our house, our neighbors and the quaint suburban town where we’re now putting down roots. In other words, I’m happy being a tenant in this building I happen to own.

The Obama administration stokes “confusion and delay” among mortgage lenders when it announces anti-foreclosure plans before completing the program details, a Bank of America Corp. executive will tell Congress.

Announcing programs without providing the rules for how borrowers and lenders should proceed, “creates immediate demand with insufficient lead time for operational readiness,” Allen Jones, a default-management policy executive at Bank of America, said in prepared testimony to be delivered before the Senate Banking Committee in Washington today.

“This can lead to negative customer experience and, ultimately, public backlash against the programs,” Allen said.

Borrowers are still awaiting the final details of a plan announced in April that would let homeowners rework home-equity debt. Other elements of a broader plan announced in February have been slow to reach the public. The administration said last month that the program, intended to help as many as 4 million people, had only extended modification offers to about 150,000.

Then things got ugly. If we were forced to sell our current home, which I estimate has lost 5% or so of its value in our 10 months of ownership—despite the more than $20,000 we’ve made in improvements—our cumulative return over the years sinks to approximately 2% annually. And if prices keep falling in our northern New Jersey neighborhood, as is likely for a while, that return will shrink even further.

WHERE DOES HE GETS HIS NUMBERS?Property tax @ average $8,000.00 he is even.

12k a year in taxes for somerset and hunterdon is more appropriate for a 600k house. I pay 5k for a 300k cape. Also any home for sale at 1999 prices is a steal. Back then 300k bought you a 4 bed 2.5 bath in a great town. If you bought in 05 or 06 at the peak, 0% return is quite possible and likely in 10 years, but that’s not the average.

Lastly, buying a home is an insurance policy against inflation in the next ten years. Deflation should be the result of this banking mess but the fed is not going to allow it. Heck, Helicopter Ben is printing money to buy treasuries. How does that piece of mind factor into the equation?

grim, can you pull history on MLS 2681892 in Summit? I think we will have a decent comp killer there as it was purchased in March 2008 and should have sold again by now, at a price I am guessing will be much less than the 2008 price.

I doubt GS will have any exposure to CIT, CIT actually has a lot of tangible equity. In a bankruptcy GS is sitting ahead of secured bondholders.

I do think Timmy played this very bad. CIT stock rose a lot last week considering it was soley on Timmy’s remarks. Those common shareholders are getting wiped out. Pref shareholders are getting wiped out too. Meanwhile the people who bought senior bonds last week will lose but that is different, that was a risk reward play in a guess on how this game of chicken will turn out. They lost but that was a financial decision, the commmon was a bet, Timmy should not be part of problem. It is fine if he does not help. Also GS is in the commerical lending business itself, GS has inside track due to relationship with CIT and can cherry pick ex CIT clients in bankruptcy.

19.John says:
July 16, 2009 at 8:11 am
I doubt GS will have any exposure to CIT, CIT actually has a lot of tangible equity. In a bankruptcy GS is sitting ahead of secured bondholders.

I do think Timmy played this very bad. CIT stock rose a lot last week considering it was soley on Timmy’s remarks. Those common shareholders are getting wiped out. Pref shareholders are getting wiped out too. Meanwhile the people who bought senior bonds last week will lose but that is different, that was a risk reward play in a guess on how this game of chicken will turn out. They lost but that was a financial decision, the commmon was a bet, Timmy should not be part of problem. It is fine if he does not help. Also GS is in the commerical lending business itself, GS has inside track due to relationship with CIT and can cherry pick ex CIT
clients in bankruptcy.

JJ: This is how I got burned with Lehman. I was sitting at 73 on par bonds on Friday, and I figured, why should I sell out when they will be bailed at it will blow through par Monday AM……wrongo….today they are trading at 16.50, but they have traded down to 8.50. I forget where the CDS was settled. The freakiest thing was watching a bond payment post on 9/15/08 and then seeing it reverse the next day…….add insult to injury :)

Timmy got ransacked by Sheila. Go Sheila. Unfortunately, CIT was not too big to fail. Only 1/9 the size of Lehman, 1/4 of Wamu.

Timmy must go. It’s an embarrassment to send him around the world as a high profile bond salesman. The result, laughter bestowed upon him by Chinese students. He’s simply a puppet.

We need to hire a rain-maker bond salesman as Treas Sec.. One who can convince the world that our dollar is/will remain strong, barf, and can convince the world to buy into the greatest ponzi scheme of all time.

Come to think of it, we should hire Madoff. He brings a stellar resume. No need to let this talent rot for 150 years.

Way to go Sheila. Rule of law actually does exist, it has risen from the ashes. Green shoots for rule of law.

Hey, chicagofinance the funny thing CIT bailout was never about the cash, the Treasury was in it for a little over 3 billion and they only needed 2 billion more to survive. The treasury easily could have risked 2 billion to save 3 billion, all they needed was to dilute shareholders and give bondholders a haircut. Which is what must people would have done, the treasury wants to show bailouts are over and the 3 billion compared to what they are in the hole for at other firms is a small price to pay.l

“he reinforces the fact that he is is a nothing….it actually sayes more about CNBC than anything else really…”

agreed, I caught the story at zerohedge a week or two back, before that I never heard of Dennis Kneale… it was better that way. He brings nothing but enthusiasm for the ridiculous notion that “all’s well!”. Add the backdrop reading “The Recession is Over” and I’m done. What a complete tool bag. CNBC blows… main stream news media blows, they’re all full of shlt.

We are simply witnessing a slow motion train wreck. The greatest run on banks in our history. Yes, greater than the GD. Shadow banking is kaput. Credit will continue to get tighter and banks will try to rape you, thru their hidden fees.

Every damn press conference reminds me of the 3 stooges. This is the leadership that will get us out of this mess? They are attacking a raging forest fire with a garden hose. They are simply digging deeper holes.

“The U.S. economy is still struggling. And the credit markets are still failing to function – mostly because the roots of the American financial system remain diseased. Thanks to the crisis-deferral tactics of former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the American banking system is now grafted onto the diseased roots of dishonest asset pricing, deceptive accounting, capricious government intervention and malign regulatory overhauls.”

“As a nation, we blew it. We had the chance to implement constructive changes and we blew it. When we finally had the chance to purge of the rot from the financial system, we chose the exact opposite path: we bailed out the rot, and forced the healthy to subsidize the process.”

An exodus of wealthy individuals from increasingly onerous taxation in the UK is fuelling something of a mini property market boom in some of Europe’s offshore jurisdictions while property prices all around continue to crash.

According to a survey by the Sovereign Group, the international offshore tax firm, house prices in Gibraltar and Monaco – two of the most popular locations for wealthy British expats – are rising or holding steady, while property values in the adjacent markets of southern Spain and France have crashed by 50% since the credit crunch has gripped bank lending. The survey also shows that Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Geneva are also bucking the housing markets trend, thanks largely to UK Chancellor Alistair Darling’s recent budgets.

“We believe, and all our local sources are telling us, that much of this disparity is because of interest from a new breed of British tax refugee as the UK government’s tax-and-spend folly begins to bite,” commented Howard Bilton, Chairman of The Sovereign Group.

Darling announced in April that a new 50% rate of tax will be paid on annual incomes over GBP150,000 from April 2010, but anyone earning more than GBP100,000 will be worse off as a result of his decision to curb tax allowances. Furthermore, the Chancellor is restricting tax relief on pension contributions for wealthy taxpayers.

The government hopes that the new top rate of tax will raise GBP2.4bn in revenues by 2013/14, but most wealthy taxpayers are expected to have the wherewithal to avoid the increased tax, either through tax planning or switching tax residence. Critics of the proposals also warn that it sends out all the wrong signals to the world’s business community. . . .”

Buy a house to hedge against inflation. One of the biggest outlays a homeowner will pay out is property taxes, which are directly impacted by inflation.

So, while you might be offsetting home inflation risk by buying a house, you are taking on a completely new (but different) inflation risk. Along with all the additional liabilities associated with home ownership.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) defended his proposal for new excise and corporate taxes to finance water infrastructure by telling a congressional hearing July 15 that local water fees are expanding greatly.

A day earlier, Blumenauer introduced the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 3202) to establish a clean water trust fund as a mechanism for increasing federal financial assistance for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. Blumenauer lined up bipartisan cosponsorship, and the bill garnered support from the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, some environmental groups, and some contractor associations that would do the work of upgrading infrastructure.

But at the hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, the bill drew skepticism from the National Association of Water Companies, the American Water Works Association, and the American Beverage Association, a group representing some of the bill’s tax targets.

The bill would create a tax of 4 cents per container for water-based beverages, including soft drinks but not milk, juice, alcoholic beverages, or pharmaceutical drinks. It would create a 3 percent tax on products disposed of in wastewater, such as toothpaste, cosmetics, toilet paper, and cooking oil. It would levy a tax of 0.5 percent on pharmaceutical products. It would boost corporate taxes by one-fifteenth of one percent on profits over $4 million. . . .”

Now, I seem to recall one of the candidates saying that the average person would not see their taxes increase “by a dime.”

Dime, no. And when they aren’t posed directly, but passed through, they technically aren’t taxes, I guess. Just like what I leave in the toilet technically isn’t food.

John Stewart last night asked a very straightforward question to the Health and Human Services head (forget her name) about the healthcare plan up for vote. He pointed out that people at the top and the bottom have options to services, but it is the people in the middle who are getting screwed with coverage, so HOW MUCH LESS WILL THEY HAVE TO PAY UNDER THE NEW PLAN? No answer.

Remember folks it is just a liquidity issue with any of these banks. Nothing to see here, go out and run up the credit cards already and buy a new Chevy, heck take a vacation on the house it is July after all.

“Senate Aims to Raise Up to $100 Billion
From Taxes, Fees on Insurance Industry

Senate Finance Committee members are considering a new fee or tax on the health insurance industry to raise $75-$100 billion to help pay for its health care reform proposal, senators said July 15.

Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) told reporters that because health insurers have seen their profits rise 428 percent since 2000 by “underpaying providers, underpaying consumers, and overpaying themselves,” the industry should be required to pay a significant share of the costs of reforming the health system.

In 2007, the senators said the top 10 health insurance companies earned $12.9 billion— profits that Menendez said were “achieved on the backs of most Americans in this country.” . . .”

Now, I am sure that these fees and taxes won’t be passed through to ratepayers. Menendez wouldn’t let that happen, would he?

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- CIT Group Inc. (CIT) had lessened its own systemic significance by pulling back on lending in recent months, a Treasury official said late Wednesday, after news emerged that the government would not provide additional aid to the lender.

“They’ve been gradually making themselves less systemically important,” the official said.

CIT already had drawn $2.33 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program but was looking for additional assistance. Still, government authorities were not prepared to provide it with additional funds because its problems had grown too large and its lending levels had dropped too much.

Now that is a kick in the pants, if they went hogwild lending to subprime folks the last few months they would have got bailed out.

Comrade,
as a single payer, Im all for a rehaul of this broke down system but I want the details already. Its is true, insurance companes have been wildly profitable primarily by slyly and constantly denying coverage. If we want to keep it private, then at the very least they should be regulated, heavily and that would include justified rate increases and mandatory rate to deductible ratios as well as mandatory preventative screenings.
My concern is that they are still going with an employer based system, so where does that leave me? Why we link healthcare with employment is a mystery to me. Also as a self employed person will I be paying the employer tax on healthcare as well as the premiums for the new govt policy?

The Obama Administration July 15 issued a statement of policy commending the $5.5 billion funding level set for Internal Revenue Service tax enforcement through the fiscal year 2010 financial services appropriations bill.

“The administration appreciates the [House Appropriations] Committee’s support for IRS enforcement, fully funding the request and adopting the program integrity proposal for enhanced tax enforcement activities,” said the statement, released by the Office of Management and Budget. “This critical program supports the administration’s initiatives to improve the fairness of our tax system, closing the gap between taxes owed and taxes paid, through a robust portfolio of new enforcement initiatives, particularly in the international tax area.” . . .”

Now, if no one here has had the pleasure of dealing with the IRS, imagine you are living in Germany in the late 1930’s.

Maybe the self employed will have to wear yellow dollar signs on all their clothing.

@3.
i recall reading neil’s story last fall about purchasing this home. if i remember correctly he moved from dallas and his wife absolutely loved loved the current house they’re in and despite the declining market this knuckle head bid over asking.
it’s nice that he finally saw an err in his way but also troubling that he writes for the wsj.

even crazier, high end, jumbo loans houses refuse to adjust, ING is one of the few banks doing Jumbos with a good rate, but they want 25% down, most of those jumbs were done at 10% down. A 1.5 million home three years ago required 150K, now it requires 375K and proof of income. Big difference.

3b #59
I saw two homes in Bergen Co. in the last week that were bought in 06 one asking 5k over and the other 95k over. The 1st nothing done to it since purchase,the 2nd finished the bsment(only improvement) and the agent told me he spent between 50-100k!? on a basement?! WTF are you kidding…

I was skeptical that we would see a wealth exodus from the US of any significance (it is happening, but not enough to move the needle).

But the more I see, the more I am convinced that the smart money is investing overseas, and if possible, moving there. The West will be eclipsed by the East. These are transformational times, and every time I start to question whether things like the Nompound or hyper-aggressive tax strategies (which are more of intellectual exercises at this point) are a good idea, something snaps me back into seeing the long-term decline.

House version of the Health Care for All Americans bill contains language making private health insurance illegal. We will all have insurance but good lukc finding a doctor. Welcome to the Animal Farm.

I expect that Obamacare will result in a system where doctors operate on a mixed insurance/cash basis. While it won’t be legal for doctors to accept cash payment in addition to insurance (and some provisions make it illegal for doctors to have any private, non-insurance business), I envision a system of palm-greasing where preferred service goes to patients that remember their doctors and long-term caregivers each year at the holidays (or more frequently) with cash gifts in order to make sure that one can get in to see a doctor, or insure that Granny’s bed linens get changed periodically, and her bedpan emptied regularly.

I also foresee that a number of hospitals will go under, however those in poor urban areas will be taken over and propped up by the gov. Those in middle class areas will disappear.

Finally, medical tourism as an industry will grow exponentially, and in the future, you may see radical (and expensive) therapies or procedures being offered in state-of-the-art clinics located in caribbean tax haven countries, which will be welcomed by those countries as they try to diversify away from finance for offshore revenues.

Remember the lookback rules governing clawbacks in bankruptcy for fraudulent transfers and transfers to insiders, and start to get your business thinly-capitalized now rather than later. Equity-stripping by a loan payable to an offshore trust of dubious lineage is a good way to start.

Given what CRE will be worth in the future, it doesn’t make sense to burn down your building. Or insure it for that matter.

For years we as a nation have poked fun at the French for their prissy attitude, which seems to largely stem from a feeling of resentment from losing status as one of the two or three top dogs on the world stage. If we allow oruselves to be eclipsed economically, loss of military power will necessarilly follow, for it is ther economy that pays for the military. Should that occur, I wonder how well we — whose identity is so wrapped-up in being the TOP DOG and “exceptional” — will deal with the loss of stature. I suspect we will make the French look like gracious saints, especially if newly-rich foreigners start scooping up all of the “good spots” in this nation, kind of like “rich Americans” have been doing overseas for scores of years.

I suggest fiscal prudence to ward off any such dimunition of status and power, because, if it comes, it will not be pretty.

No. Provided the loan is structured correctly, it qualifies for the portfolio interest exemption. You pay interest directly to an offshore noteholder regardless of whether or not they are in a tax haven. No need to withhold since the interest income is tax free.

Real problem is the offshore entity, and whether it is a front for a US taxpayer. Needless to say, one must avoid US “control” and US beneficiaries. Bermuda special purpose trusts are often used by the wealthy to accomplish this.

insurance companes have been wildly profitable primarily by slyly and constantly denying coverage

Lies! Insurance companies, like all organizations in the private sector, only seek to maximize efficiency and reduce costs while continuing to provide a quality product to their consumers (in this case, insureds).

One thing you should bear in mind. From an insurance companies point of view, risks are rated. Not all risks are equal. A 35 year old with a lucrative career in investment banking and group membership in Goldman’s group health pool is a lower risk than a 35 year old with a spotty employment record and low average annual income. Why should an insurance company treat them the same way? They shouldn’t. The ibanker deserves better treatment and the only way to make that happen is to deny the no-value-add losers coverage. There’s nothing SLY about it. It’s exactly how it should be.

If you and people like you had their way, losers would live forever and they’d suck away valuable and limited resources from the people who deserve it more than they do. You’d prop up lesser human beings and let down their betters.

That’s no America I want to live in. The Founding Fathers, who had the wisdom to recognize the inequality of humankind as evidenced by their tacit support for slavery, would roll in their graves if they were here today.

Shore 75 – Any indication on where in town this happened? Stu and I lived in JC many moons ago. My street parked car was actually smashed up during a high speed police chase/shoot out through my neigborhood.

Interestingly enough, the suspect drove a red car. My car had white paint all over it at the point of impact, but the police report clearly said that only the suspect hit my car.

This is just so funny, even funnier they waited until 10:12 am to do it today. Actually it would make more sense the other way around, having it as a sell when it was two bucks and a buy when it is 30 cents.

Interesting enough CIT senior bonds are trading in the 50’s and unsecured bonds in the high 30’s. That impplies a RR or a pricing in of a last minute savior.

House version of the Health Care for All Americans bill contains language making private health insurance illegal. ”

Every now and then, when I question why I am still registered as a Republian, I read something like this and it all comes back to me. Even with the knuckleheads from the west and south — who are driving the party into the ground — running things, I can’t bring myself to join with a bunch of shortsighted wannabe s0ci@-lists.

ING Reliastar has pretty good life insurance rates if someone is looking, they are thinking of raising rates so move quickly, they also do sell 30 year life although since less companies sell that product the price can be higher. On a 20 year policy you can still switch every time prem is due no committment. The guy I work with did a 20 year when he was 32 last year when rates fell he was able to lock in a new 20 year when he was 37 for slightly less, he is done having kids so that 20 year gets him though college. I have a life insurance policy that runs though 67, I got a great rate, but only because I am in perfect health, but one more cheesburger and I get a stent I would be SOL looking for a policy.

Does anyone here have any experience traveling in New Zealand? I wonder if it might not be a decent retirement place. It is a bit isolated but also has a strong democratic history, english is main language, and there is lots of water.

The House Ways and Means Committee began its markup of a health care overhaul plan early July 16 and is expected to address more than 50 amendments, including a chairman’s amendment that makes minor changes to the tax-related provisions.

Specifically, it would make clarifications to the calculation of modified adjusted gross income, which is used to determine the health care surtax included in the measure to help pay for the legislation. It also would add a new section “providing that the income and payroll tax exclusion for employer provided health coverage includes an individual who is eligible to receive coverage under the employer’s health plan, and makes similar changes with respect to the deduction for health coverage for self-employed individuals.”

It also would add a new section modifying the definition of medical expenses for the purposes of health reimbursement agreements, health flexible spending agreements, health savings accounts, and Archer medical savings accounts. Under the proposal, the cost of over-the-counter medicines would not be eligible for reimbursement with excludible income through a Health FSA, HRA, or HSA. The provision would raise $8.2 billion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. . . .”

So make sure you buy up all those OTC meds with your FSAs before Obamacare takes that benefit away. But Hopeium will continue to be covered under Obamacare.

Nom 90 – Already had to do that once they got rid of cold medicines for small children simply because of people who couldn’t measure. Once that ran out, Lil Gator had to switch to British meds. He loves the flavor and now freuently tries to tell me that he thinks he has a ‘chesty cough’ in a futile attempt to get more.

Dumbest recall since the Bumbo seat that had to be recalled to add a label telling parents not to leave infants in it unattended high off the floor.

The worst thing is that my party is so $cr-eweed up that we seem unable to mount a credible challenge to this taxing madness.

If they would first cut out every bit of waste and even good but not necessary programs before turning to taxing, I would feel a whole lot better even if taxes increased. It is this add, add, add to existing bloat that sets-off my ire. No doubt there are many programs, offices, commissions, and the like that do good things and would be sad to see cut; however, the ship is taking on water at an alarming rate, and now is not the time to get sentimental about every last item on board — it is time to toss things in order to preserve the vessel.

I’ve been reading a section-by-section of the bill under consideration, and I have to agree with Bob Corker. This will be a train wreck. At a minimum, private insurers will get out of the healthcare business, and those left will jack rates to unheard of levels, and employers will ditch private insurance en masse for the government plan, or pay the tax.

If I were a Republican in Congress, I would not want my fingerprints on this catastrophe. It will end badly. Expect the leadership to be pushing the fact that healthcare costs and government bureacracy growth will skyrocket.

I’m not being partisan here either. What I saw in that bill is truly scary.

“Construction is generally considered a lagging economic indicator, and the initial 2009 data from Dodge demonstrate that this recession is following the historical trend,” added Mr. Anderson. “The construction industry is successful when there is a steady stream of new, multi-year projects coming on line to replace those projects that are reaching completion. While the industry has been buoyed by the willingness of owners and tenants to renovate their existing spaces, we will need a string of months similar to May before the industry can expect a fuller, more robust recovery.”

Years ago, in another life, I worked for a Fortune 500 family, and they had a Nompound in New Zealand. Very popular with the wealthy set, and I would not be surprised if families like theirs are quietly arranging for their kids to have NZ passports.

“How would you feel about reducing/eliminating social security payments to people who made more than a certain cumulative amount over the course of their careers?

I see 67 year olds with 3 million in the bank, a nice house and yacht getting social security payments and I think, we’d be better off using that money adding runways in airports or beds in hospitals.”

I have no objection to it, as long as the payments can be restored should the person’s circumstances change. It should be there as a safey net.

I laugh when people speak of the quality of our healthcare sustem. We may have the best technology and even the best-trained practitioners, but there is not much of a system in place, more isolated islands strugling to work together.

“That’s no America I want to live in. The Founding Fathers, who had the wisdom to recognize the inequality of humankind as evidenced by their tacit support for slavery, would roll in their graves if they were here today.”

I suggest you read it, and let me know whether you think private insurers will raise or lower their premiums as a result.

Consider this: The administration got thru laws regulating the credit card industry. What happened to fees and terms before it went into effect? And consider this: The credit card co can drop you or reduce your limit; the new healthcare bill prevents insurance cos. from rescinding coverage except for fraud.

Anyway, read the section-by-section analysis and tell me how you think the insurers will respond. Unless they are nationalized, they will IMHO boost rates and change terms dramatically.

Safety net, I agree. It’s simply not being used appropriately (IMO) when social security payments turn into a pretext to go gamble in Atlantic city.

We haven’t invested in our infrastructure in any meaningful way in decades, while other countries in Asia and Europe and Australia/NZ continue to do so. I had hopes that Obama’s stim bill would address the issue, based on this campaign rhetoric. But then Congress got a hold of it and infrastructure spending ended up being less than 10% of the bill :(

I’d love to see the money cut from social sec and put into projects we can all use. Hospitals, trains, roadways, ports.

Shore [96]
I actually checked a couple of years ago – unfortunately, NZ’s immigration system is set up to make a retirement there close to impossible. Even if you own some RE, you can’t be in the country >6 mos in a given year, and you can’t get their analog of a greencard unless you either are of the working age, or have a very close relative citizen there; while Nom possibly will be able to claim refugee status, you won’t… Besides, the country is much more soci@list than anything O’s administration could possibly implement here.

Under the proposal, with respect to medicines, the definition of medical expense for
purposes of HRAs, Health FSAs, HSAs, and Archer MSAs is conformed to the definition for
purposes of the itemized deduction for medical expenses. Thus, under the proposal, the cost of
over-the-counter medicines may not be reimbursed with excludible income through a Health
FSA, HRA, or HSA.

Effective Date

The proposal is effective for expenses incurred after December 31, 2009.”

I will take a look at the bill. The bill in its current form is just a step in the direction of single payer though, no? Perhaps I’m vastly overestimating the integrity of the democrats to push for single payer health against the wishes of their financial backers.

The bill would prevent foreign multinational corporations incorporated in tax haven countries from avoiding tax on income earned in the United States by routing their income through structures in which a United States subsidiary of the foreign multinational corporation makes a deductible payment to a country with which the United States has a tax treaty before ultimately repatriating these earning in the tax haven country. . . .”

So, no routing outflows to Ireland to take advantage of their treaty, and then transferring it all to your favorite caribbean destination.

Interestingly, this is applicable to FOREIGN multinationals, which raises a whole host of legal problems for implementation. Suggests strongly that the US is going to aggressively re-interpret tax treaties and go after foreign companies.

On the flip side, it will do wonders for the Irish and Swiss economies as corporations rush to incorporate in countries with US tax treaties.

Personally, even if the corporation doesn’t reincorporate, the IRS won’t see much from this.

I liken it to what happened at the state level with auto insurance. NJ and Mass were so aggressive that many insurers quit the business. Mass. was down to one private insurer, and because Mass. required any insurer in the state to write auto, that led to a train wreck where Mass. had to rescind that rule lest homeowners and others suddenly could not get insurance.

These states also had to create high risk pools, essentially gov-created insurance companies, to insure those that the private insurers would not touch.

And did this government intervention result in lower premiums? You get one guess. Make it count.

“Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he was justified last year in suggesting that Bank of America’s chief executive could lose his job if the bank backed out on plans to buy troubled Merrill Lynch.

His admission, which came during a House hearing Thursday, came as Congress debates the government’s role in managing financial firms that accept billions of dollars in aid. . . .

Paulson said he told Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis last year that reneging on his promise to purchase Merrill would show a “colossal lack of judgment.”

Paulson said that “under such circumstances,” the Federal Reserve would be justified in removing management at the bank.

“By referring to the Federal Reserve’s supervisory powers, I intended to deliver a strong message reinforcing the view that had been consistently expressed by the Federal Reserve, as Bank of America’s regulator, and shared by the Treasury, that it would be unthinkable for Bank of America to take this destructive action for which there was no reasonable legal basis and which would show a lack of judgment,” Paulson said.

Tosh, I have no idea. My job depends on continuing construction. I’ve noticed work proceeding and picking up just personally.

If the existing surplus of condo conversions etc. in NYC adapted to the market it would probably not be a surplus at all. By adapting to the market I mean accept that not every apartment (rat hole) in manhattan can rent for over 2500 a month.

That data boggles my mind as well. Is some of it stimulus money? Gov’t contracts moving forward? Hospital expansions etc are ramping up- due to planned expansion to accomodate the boomers aging and now anticipated health care reform.

Part of me thinks that it may just be typical summer permit activity- but things are starting to move again. Dead projects are starting up. Commercial spaces are starting to be worked on.

Again, all this is from my personal myopic pitiful place as an expediter. I know nothing and shouldn’t breath the same air as the more important finance geniusii surrounding me.

I know there’s a lot of gloom and doom re: the market but I also see a lot of the more savvy developers instead of lowering prices on units, building out the units to the buyers specifications.

One new east side high rise condo has sold just under 3/4 of all the committed units without any on paper price concessions. They’re taking a loss on profits but they’re not taking a beating. They’re probably 10% shy of the expected sales from when the project started and more willing to eat the costs of buildout for the residential and retail tenants to make sure a sale closes or a lease signs.

This developer is no where near insolvent and is simply reworking what they had anticpated. I know that gloom and doom would have all of the city at a standstill. However 6-18 mos into this thing, smart viable companies have adapted to the current conditions. Those late and new to the party are really getting hosed.

But again, back to my point that this bill is a stop-gap or a stepping stone on the way to single payer health. That’s what Obama wants, right? Dems want the “government option” from day one. If things play out like you say and private insurance rates quickly go up, the government option will quickly gain critical mass to be able to compete with the private insurers on price. The benefit, for those on the public insurance plan, will be that if they have a heart attack and need to spend 2 weeks in the hospital, they won’t have to shell out half a mil and go bankrupt.

Also, we’re also almost a full year from the frozen credit market and viable developers have readjusted to what is now required to get financing.

The Williamsburg, Upper Manhattan, Lower East Side projects, may have to reconfigure themselves to accomodate the non millionaires of NYC. There are tons of them that could viably rent or buy reasonably priced units to make these projects at least black or long term steady income as opposed to abandoned failures.

Hey chicagofinance, weird things happening in CIT secondary, I see people buying million dollar positions at 50 cents on a dollar. Unsecured bonds are trading lightly. Bond dealers are not processing limit sell orders and are only taking market orders to sell with no guarantee of a sale or a price by COB. I sold a senior I bought at 68 this morning for 50, which given the media accounts accounts you would think they are going for gm bond prices.

The fact that people are buying million pieces at 50 cents confuses me. That is insitutional buying which means they may suspect a RR of at least 50 cents or think creditor negoitations are going well. Either way I am selling what ever I can get a bid on. The people who got in during 2009 at prices in the 60s to 70s are dumping and taking lumps, but the people who bought in pre-2008 at par did not sell at 90. 80, 70 or 60 what makes me think they will sell at 50. I wonder if they will use their GM mentality and ride it all the way to 20 cents in Bankruptcy. CIT was a lump I expected. I just have to sell some F or C bonds to net out. Actually with a proposed 19% default rate and I was buying tons of stuff at 40% ytm I am supprised my lump took so long. The one suprise is uncle sam should have strong armed someone to give DIP finanancing or did it themselve. I do think an uncontrolled bankruptcy at this point is not going to be overall good for the credit markets, however, a controlled bankruptcy would be better. This boils down to keep doing what you are doing till it don’t work no more and stop. CIT is sending a STOP signal to people like me betting on uncle sam bailing out everything. I would like to say RIP. But before I do that I would like to thank Uncle SAM for helping me out in my AIG, C, GMAC, CMA, HIG, SOV, NCC and for opening up the credit markets for my other wild bets, RIP to big to fail strategy. Buying A rated corporates and Munis will be such a bore from now on.

Re CIT, could be a wager on a weekend deal. Until you see an actual bankruptcy petition filed I wouldn’t assume a bailout/government brokered sale being out of the question. They make it until the weekend anything can happen.

True, but he was talking ROI using incomplete information. An oversight, or willful denial?

But why not live somewhere where the “owner” subsidizes your lifestyle by spending $5K on PITI while you pay $3K on rent? There are endless underwater “owners” choosing to “rent until the market picks up.”

Layoffs Watch ’09: JPMorgan
Posted by Bess Levin, Jul 16, 2009, 11:54am
Cuts are apparently said to be going down at the House of Dimon in the Securitized Products Group circa now. No word on what took so long.

The government has to choke out other options. Otherwise, rational consumers who do not desire his plan may choose to go elsewhere. It will be interesting to see how the Messiah will perpetuate the charade that he is preserving ‘choice’.

HillaryCare did the same thing before it died, she explicitly prohibited any payments to doctors by the patient outside of her plan. Good thing she and Teddy aren’t around anymore. Oh, that’s right, they still are.

The sad thing about all this, especially as I get flamed for not caring, is that the well to do always will have a way around this government mess. Concierge medicine already sprung up years ago to address the poor state many of the docs and patients found their relationship. Other options like offshore medical will abound.

I spent significant time with the owner of the largest private hospital chain in Mexico who has hospitals as state of the art and much better run for the patient/doc than over here. It is an option of course not open to the masses. He was already discussing years ago setting up facilities right across the border if the US goes single pay to attract Americans. As crazy as it sounded five years ago that Americans would go South for their care it doesn’t seem so now.

My kids’ pediatrician is basically ‘concierge’ now. He accepts zero insurance, none. Everything is out of pocket with him, it is not cheap, but it is the best two way medical relationship I’ve ever had.

Dolph is right – unless you are wealthy or already receive most of your sustenance from government programs you are nothing but cannon fodder. And make no mistake, if you currently reside in that big, fat middle this healthcare plan WILL cost you more money than you are currently paying.

“But judging by their actions Wall Street firms are optimistic about the outlook for their businesses and comfortable with current staff levels.”

[29],

Oh really? If current conditions linger, I’m hearing 10-20% layoffs. Bear, as we know it, will not be the same. It’s either massive restructuring, 30-50% layoffs, or it will be bought by someone like Merrill or JP.

I must admit reading all these posts that it appears there is certain elitism with those who are defending the status quo on healthcare insurance. You appear to believe that you actually possess quality insurance and that your insurer will actually pay claims.

Very few of you have had a serious illness and had the carrier deny payment of treatment. My father has cancer. He had surgery and the carrier denied the follow up radiation. Now the cancer is back. He eventually did the radiation, but the expenses caused him to file for bankruptcy.

After watching the healthcare debates in the 1990s and the fears of “government healthcare” each of you ask yourselves the following question: have private insurers really done a good job for the past 20 or so years that the government could not do a better job?

At this point in my life, I am willing to give the government a chance.

Do I expect my taxes to go up? Yes. In exchange for universal healthcare so that vast majority of uninsured have healthcare. Seems like a fair trade.

Ever lose a job and with it goes your healthcare? Try that when your child was born two weeks earlier. Thank god it all worked out. . . I was extremely lucky.

Nom: yesterday you mentioned that you could sue the healthcare insurer and that would be easier than suing the government. I agree with you on that (assuming that Federal Tort Claims act is similar to the NJ Tort Claims act), but you neglected to mention ERISA and its limitation on lawsuits: You can only sue for the value of the care denied and attorney fees (I am paraphrasing and have not looked at the act in some time). If a person dies as a result of the denial, one cannot have a wrongful death claim (again, I have not looked at this statute in quite a while. I assume you are more knowledgeable). Since the atty fees have to be approved by the court as “reasonable”, I am sure that the carriers have calculated what their exposure is. Not exactly a high deterrence value.

I am not saying the legal system (i.e tort law) is the solution to the problem. I would like to see a system where medical decision could be rapidly appealed to non-carrier controlled body to determine if their decisions regarding medical necessity are correct.

Is there a chance that the government could create a monster “cluster F***”? Hell yes

Sorry: I am rambling here today. Emotion may have clouded my judgment . . . or I have not had enough coffee.

I may be naive, but since “Suzy the Cheerleader” has not been doing a great job at the insurance carrier, I willing to give someone else a shot!

Are other countries with socialized medicine paying more than we are currently paying?

The problem with our “choice”, as I see it, is that when you really need it most, it’s not available in this country. Republicans/Libertarians in this country who are pretty well off love our system of health care until it bankrupts them. Sure, chances are it won’t happen to you. Maybe there’s a 2% chance that you’ll get in a car wreck or have a stroke requiring a 3 week stay in the hospital and $X00,000 in medical bills that aren’t covered by their insurance. Its these people who get F-ed in our system. I, for one, would prefer the cost of such incidents to be deferred amongst the population–hell, even deferred amongst the population of my similar-earning peers. The problem is, this doesn’t happen to most people and hence most people don’t give a $hit.

Maybe there’s a 2% chance that you’ll get in a car wreck or have a stroke requiring a 3 week stay in the hospital and $X00,000 in medical bills that aren’t covered by their insurance.

A close family member had a stroke followed by another, much more massive, stroke and eventual death. Total stay in the hospital was about 5 weeks. Aetna HMO paid for almost all of it. The only claim they’ve denied to my knowledge is the second opinion we sought before terminating life support.

“Maybe there’s a 2% chance that you’ll get in a car wreck or have a stroke requiring a 3 week stay in the hospital and $X00,000 in medical bills that aren’t covered by their insurance.”

My point exactly. There are flaws in the current system that affect a very small portion of the current population but with disastrous results. This situation should be addressed.

But with a scalpel, focusing on the 2%, not with a howitzer of a $1T program that turns the current system upside down and replaces it with an untried and unproven social engineering experiment based on the best assumptions of a politically driven crowd.

John says:
July 16, 2009 at 11:44 am
The fact that people are buying million pieces at 50 cents confuses me. That is insitutional buying which means they may suspect a RR of at least 50 cents or think creditor negoitations are going well.

Hey Chifi by the way what did you every sell those lehman bonds at?

JJ: Even if CIT gets taken out in the 60’s or 70’s, for a fixed income investor who expected return of face at maturity, it is death.

I think you have been spoiled by all the low hanging fruit of the last 12 months. Investment grade fixed income guys are the geeks of the capital markets. Look at Bill Gross. When these guys lose 50 bps, they sh!t their pants. I had to deal with these guys on roadshows. It was ridiculous. At least the high-yield guys were human beings.

I still hold the LEH March 14’s with the 4-8 handle. Actually, it would be great if you could give me a fresh mark. It basically sat in the 13-area for months, but it had moved up to 18. With CIT today, I do know.

When the original chap 11 happened, the rumor was 55-area recovery, but then the CDS settlement occurred, and there is a huge issue around pulling in collateral and assets cross borders.

Further, are their CDS exposures considered pari pasu to the debt or in front. I actually think the CDS claim should be in front, which sucks, but I am holding out on the chance that they fall back in with senior debt. At this juncture, I think a potential 3 or 4 bagger is worth the risk. I will only close it out if I want to take losses later in the year. The settlement may not be until 2011 or later, so it is a long time to sit with no cash flow on it.

Morpheus- I hate discussing healthcare because I come off as a whiner for the very same reason. Dealing with long term medical issues, I am repeatedly met with others in waiting rooms that have the same stories. It can’t be anecdotal when I have the same conversations with people from all backgrounds.

Insurance compancies have had 15 yrs since the last attempt at healthcare overhaul to correct the situation. In the last 15 yrs, the costs of insurance have increased 3 times faster than incomes. Instead of addressing the concerns regarding denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, exhorbitant costs for the self insured, and denial of treatment to save costs, they have ramped it up to make as much money as possible.

I currently pay 8.2% of my pretax earnings for coverage, if my employer matches that (most likely he pays more). After tax, I am liable for up to 6K annually in deductibles with no limit on copays for visits or prescriptions and non durable medical goods are not covered. This means my husband’s ostomy supplies- at about $250 -$500 every 2-3 months are just our expense.

I can logically read the reasons against national healthcare but there comes a point where it just sounds like a “none on us” argument. Tough ti**ies if you’re sick and end up poor or worse yet dead. It doesn’t sit well with me at all.

I’m no expert on health care, but aren’t there a bakers dozen european countries in the middle of the same experiment with varying degrees of success? Can we learn nothing from them? Have we looked at every system and determined that ours is the best?

[160] I work for a company with over 100,000k employees, make a decent salary, and think I have decent health care. I actually have no idea. Being the cynic that I am, when the $hit hits the fan, I fully expect to get shafted.

Using the Rout in Housing to Lower Taxes
New Tools Help Owners Get Reduced Valuations; Saving Big in New Jersey
By M.P. MCQUEEN

Kim Davidson lives in Bonita, Calif., a San Diego suburb hit hard by tumbling property values. Earlier this year, she made the best of a bad situation and appealed her tax assessment. The county reduced her annual tax bill by more than $1,000 to $3,500.

“I did the whole thing online and walked [my application] down to the mailbox, and a month and a half later, I learned I saved all that money,” says Ms. Davidson, a 44-year-old account manager for a business consulting firm, who purchased the home last year. “It was incredible.”

Tens of thousands of homeowners across the country are trying to wring something positive from an epic real-estate crash. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, hit hard by rising unemployment and foreclosures, nearly 23,000 property owners applied for property-tax reductions this year, up from an annual average of 1,700. Appeals in California’s Sacramento County soared to 12,000 in 2008 from a typical rate of 1,800 a year earlier.

The number of property owners seeking a tax reduction in Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas, soared to 6,000 this year from about 1,000 annually in recent years. About three-quarters of those who filed appeals succeeded in having their valuations lowered, most by 30% to 40%, county officials say. The county already had reduced valuations across the board for the vast majority of its residential property owners, says Michele Shafe, assistant director of the Clark County Assessor’s office. She said staffers had to work overtime and Saturdays to keep up with demand for reassessments.

Many of the Nevada appeals came from homeowners in recent developments. “That is where people were paying $400,000 for homes that are now worth maybe $150,000,” Ms. Shafe says.

Many homes nationwide were last appraised prior to the housing crash and are valued for tax purposes at levels higher than today’s home prices. “If you have a three-year period between assessments and the last one was in 2007, your assessment is still at the top of the market,” says Jacqueline Byers, director of research for the National Association of Counties in Washington, D.C.

Homeowners who want to appeal their assessment in many cases can handle the process themselves, although it’s important to be prepared before going in front of an appeals board, tax experts say. People who want help can hire a property-tax consultant or attorney, but should expect to pay a fee, often 25% to 50% of the amount saved in the first year. And enlisting the service of a real-estate appraiser can cost up to several hundred dollars.

There are also a growing number of local and national online services that use automated property-valuation models to help consumers determine whether they may be able to reduce their property taxes. Initial evaluations are often free at these sites, which include EasyTaxFix.com and LowerMyAssessment.com. For a fee of $50 to $100, users can obtain forms with data already filled in and instructions on how to appeal, and a list of recent sales of comparable properties. Ms. Davidson of Bonita used EasyTaxFix.com to help with her appeal.

Such online services may be able to give you a convenient ballpark estimate of whether your home is overassessed. Tax officials say these sites’ results can be supplemented with information from other sources, such as local real-estate agents. Government tax officials also warn that scam artists have been trolling developments in California and elsewhere touting phony property-tax reduction services in direct mailings.

Nick Osnato, a real-estate appraiser in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., says he conducted his own appeal in March and succeeded in getting his tax assessment lowered by $30,000, saving him about $150 a month in property taxes.

“I looked for sales of homes that were the same size as mine, with the same lot, but that had a lower assessment. That’s it,” he says. Mr. Osnato estimates home values in New Jersey are down between 10% and 20% from a year ago, depending on the area.

Winning an appeal mainly requires producing enough evidence to convince the tax assessor or an appeals board that your property assessment is based on inaccurate or outdated information, or is unfairly high compared to similar properties. In some areas, homeowners have as little as two weeks to file a notice of appeal after receiving their tax bill, but 30 to 60 days is more common. That means homeowners have to be ready to scramble when the tax bill comes.

Check on whether you qualify for special property-tax reduction programs such as special exemptions for people age 65 and over. Then, examine property records for inaccuracies, especially square footage. The assessor keeps on file a property record-card that contains your lot number, zoning category, address, sales records, land value and dimensions, as well as significant features as recorded by the town appraiser. Check it closely for errors, including inaccurate descriptions of the property (say, a three-car garage instead of two). Also check whether significant defects like a leaky basement, which could lower the value of the property, are on record. Nowadays, many municipalities put this information online.

While you are at it, check the assessor’s math, particularly with respect to assessment formulas. Some areas use full-market value, replacement value or sales price. Others use a fraction of the market value.

Next, locate three to five comparable properties and check your property against them, making adjustments for differences. Sales data are available from your local government, or a licensed real-estate agent.

“Look for disparities that cannot be explained away, like the age of other properties or better lot configuration, or view. If those things can’t explain why the assessment is so much higher than others, you may have grounds to appeal on equitability,” says Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, an advocacy group.

If you think your property value is unfairly high, your next step is to contact your local assessor. If the property information on record is inaccurate, the assessor may be able to lower your assessment without a formal appeal. But if an appeal before an appeals or equalization board is necessary, you will have to produce evidence to support your complaint. Bring an appraiser’s report, if you have one, and records of comparable sales along with any other supporting documentation, such as photos, a surveyor’s report and contractors’ estimates. If your appeal is turned down, additional appeals usually are heard by a state court.

For more information about how to file an appeal, a brochure is available for $6.95 from the National Taxpayers Union at http://www.ntu.org.

Experts say there are few drawbacks to applying to reduce your tax assessment. However, if you made additions and improvements to your home that were never properly recorded with your town—usually through a building permit—you might not receive a reduction, and could conceivably face an increased assessment.

Robert Chambers, administrator of the Cuyahoga County Board of Revision, which handles appeals in the Cleveland area, says the most common mistake homeowners make is failing to bring enough evidence about the house.

“Most of the time if a person is denied, it is because of lack of evidence,” Mr. Chambers says. “They say here is a similar bungalow or ranch, but they don’t adjust for age, square footage, etcetera, which is everything that a certified appraiser must do,” he says.

He suggests refraining from using a hearing as a forum to vent your rage at high taxes. “You are filing a legal affidavit that says the auditor’s value is wrong and I have evidence to show you that,” he says.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D1

My wife and I have sold all of our four previous homes for more than we paid for them—sometimes a lot more.

We’ve been pretty lucky. We’ve never overpaid much for a house, we’ve always bought in good school districts and decent neighborhoods, we’ve lived in neighborhoods where prices soared during the real-estate bubble, and we’ve been hurt but not decimated by the bursting of that bubble.

When I constructed a very basic cash-flow model for our home-buying history—selling price minus purchase price, renovations and repairs—it showed a roughly 3.5% annualized return on investment, from 1991 through the summer of last year. That’s when we sold our last home and bought our current one.

Then things got ugly. If we were forced to sell our current home, which I estimate has lost 5% or so of its value in our 10 months of ownership—despite the more than $20,000 we’ve made in improvements—our cumulative return over the years sinks to approximately 2% annually. And if prices keep falling in our northern New Jersey neighborhood, as is likely for a while, that return will shrink even further.

So do I regret owning a home? Heck, no. It’s not a get-rich scheme, and Americans never should have viewed it as one. Owning a home has given my family a series of anchors to cling to as we’ve moved around the country for my job. It’s allowed us to live in pleasant neighborhoods where it would have been tough to find a rental house. And paying down a mortgage is a form of forced savings, which should help us in retirement.

Columbia Business School’s Christopher Mayer, who has studied housing markets, says our experience with home-price gains is pretty typical. Home appreciation nationally has run about 1% above inflation over time.

The big price run-ups from the late 1990s through 2006 or 2007 were an aberration. The biggest value you derive from home ownership isn’t appreciation. “It’s being able to live in it,” Prof. Mayer says, and avoiding the rent you would otherwise have to pay.

That’s why you should buy as much home as you need—but no more. A bigger home than you need isn’t an investment—it’s an extravagance, the equivalent of renting a bigger apartment than you need. You may choose to do so, but that doesn’t make it a smart move financially.

Another reason home ownership isn’t the road to riches: Most houses—especially the old ones my wife and I favor—are money pits.

Consider the house we owned in Verona, N.J., from 2001 to 2004. We bought it for $335,000 and sold it for $455,000 near the height of the real-estate boom. That’s nearly an 11% annualized return. The only problem was that we sunk $45,000 into renovating the bathrooms, spiffing up the kitchen, refinishing the floors and the like. The result: Our actual return was less than 7%.

Contrast that with our current house. Counting the money we’ve sunk into it and its decline in value, I estimate close to a 10% loss on our investment since we bought it last year. Prof. Mayer predicts house prices in the New York metropolitan area will fall an additional 10% over the next couple of years.

That’s the brutal financial reality of home ownership in today’s market. But the consolation is this: I really like our house, our neighbors and the quaint suburban town where we’re now putting down roots. In other words, I’m happy being a tenant in this building I happen to own.

The survey covers factories in a region encompassing eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware and is looked at closely as one of the first indicators of the health of the U.S. manufacturing sector. . . .”

What I don’t get is the fact that an anemic market that has been losing mfg jobs to the south and overseas for years is still considered “one of the first indicators of health . . .”

We have a friend, 30 yrs old. In the last year and 1/2 he has lost his gall bladder and 1 kidney to cancer and undergone chemotherapy twice. That’s 1 1/2 yrs without income, with 3 deductibles of 2500 (timing of illness is very important), not including copays and prescriptions.

The insurance company hasn’t denied a claim. He’s getting the best care possible. His ex boss actually continues to pay for his insurance. We couldn’t be more thrilled that he has worked through all this.

However, Social Security has yet to pay a cent to him. How do you go through 12 months without money while hemoraging through cash? That’s where I start meshing my ideas regarding health care and the overall “safety net”. One thing is to make sure you get affordable and accessible care, the other is to make sure that while you’re getting the care, you don’t end up financially ruined. They go hand in hand.

If a Social Security like entity ends up running Healthcare there is no hope.

That’s a very basic part of the problem. The current system totally divorces those consuming the service from those paying for the service. Focus on fixing that – with more choice and putting both the healthcare decision AND payment in the hands of the patient – and much of the insurance company problem disappears.

That market will self correct rapidly. Many insurers will find themselves out of business, rates will come down tremendously as consumers shop for the exact coverage they want at competitive prices, and choice will actually go up.

The typical consumer spends more time choosing which wine and entree at dinner than on which healthcare plan they will take. How can one expect anything good to come of that? And there is nothing in the government plan I see fixing it. In fact, just the opposite. The government plan further isolates the patient from the payment/medical decision and homogenizes coverage. Remind me again how this improves care, reduces costs, and expands choice?

i might get railed for this one but w/ all the health insc. talk going on today i have to ask: has anyone seen michael moore’s documentary “sicko”? i know, i know… i’m not a devout fan and know his tendency to slant opinion but the group of american’s who now live in france spoke during an interview session and their opinions on the french vs american system really shed light on how flawed our system really is. granted, france being the heavy tax country it is comes at a price but after shelling out additional premiums for my new daughter’s coverage and crossed with the flma time lines for cobra coverage on my wife’s plan, i’m willing to listen to a new proposal.

If you’re getting insurance through your employer, you get what they decide to offer. I have looked into purchasing insurance for our family with different terms. I figured if I could get a better deal, and ask my employer to increase my salary by 1/2 what he was already contributing to my healthcare, I could swing it. The cost was about 12K a year for the same coverage.

One of the proposals floated around would have a 3-4 tier standard plan that private insurers would match and therefore allow for people to evenly compare what would be the best plan for them. They are trying to address that problem.

I think small business and employees should be offered the opportunity to buy into a national plan, if it makes economic sense for them to do so. The buying power of a small company wouldn’t match that of a region. My fear would be that businesses would not provide coverage and then not pass on that savings to their employees in order to offset their costs to secure their own coverage. It’s not even a fear as much as it is a guaranteed result.

“Rep Dan Burton called Paulson a liar, Rep Lynch said Paulson misled Congress, they should toss him in the Congressional Jail.”

Most people do not realize that their is a small jail inside the capitol. As such, and since the Speaker of the House and Presidnt Pro Tempore of the Senate (via their Sergeans at arms, I believe) control the Capitol Police, and the respective bodies (House and Seante) each possess full arrest authority and can use their respective sergeants at arms to effectuate arrests (bypassing the executive branch) the House and Senate have missed numerous opportunities to stand up for their own power and force compliance with the nation’s laws and its own subpoenas.

Case in point, when Karl Rove and Hariett Myers, and others, refused to come and testify, I would have snatched themoff the street, or at their homes, and hauled them to the capitol in shackles and ordered them to testify. If they chose not to, off to the basement cedlls. Enough wimpiness in the face of asserted executive power. Co-equal is co-equal or it is not; exercise power or lose it.

Your example is a perfect illustration of why I think government should provide backstop catestrophic insurance coverage. It should not be in the business of offering first-dollar insurance, that should be left to individuals or private insurance.

Just as government engages in levee construction to prevent huge floods from wiping out towns, but does not bother itself with ensuring that every basement is protected from floods due to poor drainage, government may provide a guarantee that families will not be wiped out due to illness, while not meddling in decisions as to routine medical care.

3b- increase new permit activity. In the last two months more than a few previously dead projects have been reinstated and permits pulled. Contractors I haven’t heard from for a few months are coming back with work. I deal with everything from apartment renovations to new buildings and I have seen an across the board increase in quotes requested, applications going out, and filings moving forward.

I’m not saying it’s scientific. I am saying that we went through 6-8 months of bare bones work. Our office shrunk in half to stay in black. In the last 2 months I’m starting to feel an increase in workload, and pressure from clients ready to get going on projects.

This country is run by banks and insurance companies. They do not merely lobby, cajole and advise Congress and the executive…they own them outright.

All these new plans and bills moving out of committee are subterfuge and red herrings.

Absolutely nothing will change. When push comes to shove, the guys who run things will throw their weight around, the old system will remain, the current administration will be annihilated, and the economic destruction of the US will continue apace.

The people who really run the country will not stop until we have all either been completely subjugated or we foment an uprising that ends in the executions of these silent dictators.

#181 Just as government engages in levee construction to prevent huge floods from wiping out towns, but does not bother itself with ensuring that every basement is protected from floods due to poor drainage, government may provide a guarantee that families will not be wiped out due to illness, while not meddling in decisions as to routine medical care

I agree.Most of this insurance talk is good for prevention.Time you get sick need to quit your job because your too ill,just when you need every penny they tell you to buy your insurance.Even if gubmint is saying company can not deny you.What happened to Medicare contribution during working years?

Shore- I wish you were in the senate. I actually think the catastrophic coverage is an excellent idea. Much like most states require limited liability coverage for autos but not full coverage.

I think though that the economy of scale for insurance wouldn’t happen with catastrophic coverage. I can’t deny that the insurance mandate is a power play to redefine government.

Would requiring every citizen to secure catastrophic coverage help increase preventative medicine, decrease overall medical costs, sufficiently pose a threat so that private insurers are forced to compete? I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem to have the bite.

It is a rational and legitimate idea. Honestly, had we had Aflack or similar (you bet I have it now), we would have been I think semi ok. But, my husband was 26 going on 27 when it happened. We really had no reason to imagine this consequence.

chicagofinance that is why I am getting out today. I have 27K position that I averaged into at around 70. I am getting out at 50 which is around a 4K loss after I account for the interest I received. They say RR will be 50 cents so technically I should not sell as a white knight may apprear, but I don’t trust the RR. Also CIT has closed books on 2Q but earnings not released till 7/23. Govt had a look at the unaudited 2Q numbers over the weekend and held their nose. If money was coming in they would have got a life line. I learned an important lesson trading junk, big balls are good, but once they get so big they are dragging on the ground Sheila Blair is going to squeesh them.

a big step that could have preserved the private HC system wouldhave been to pass federal law to stop the dirty tricks insurers use, for example, double speak in their contracts and the fact that they can withhold the complete contract from you and dictate that contract to you over the phone when you have a complaint but not until after you bought the policy and made a claim. That’s just one of many.
My personal favorite: Horizon BCBSNJ states that it will be for colonoscopies that are performed in a doctors office, but will not cover them in a hospital……..DOCTORS DO NOT PERFORM COLONOSCOPIES OUTSIDE OF HOSPITALS. Cute, to the tune of 2,500 out of pocket on a 8,000 policy with a 5,000 deductible. Just ONE example…

181 Shore
I’ve been saying this for years. Let me pay cash for regular appointments, kids vaccines, colds, flu. Give me a low premium MAJOR MEDICAL (hello, we had this in the 70s) for when someone falls and breaks a hip, kid needs an operation after injury, serious illness, etc

3b- The larger projects are govt work – hospitals, schools, colleges. The mid level projects are long term leases signed for street level commercial spaces. The smallers ones are new buyers combining apartments etc. I’ll say there isn’t a lot of large scale residential work.

The excess residential is going to have to come up with a new game plan in order to stem the losses. I read recently the city is offering to subsidize rents from some already and in progress condos to become affordable rentals. Apparently the cost is less than they’re currently paying. I can see a few of the outer borough and northern manhattan projects ending up as rentals.

Clot- the hospital work is long term planning for increased long term care facilities & hospice (aging population). The retail stuff is only moving forward on signed leases and the new change is that the landlord- not the leasee, is footing the cost of construction in order to get the leases signed in every project.

The residential stuff is still wrapping up old projects and getting them off construction finance and an ever growing list of apartment renovations for new buyers. Again- some (not all) of these the costs are footed by seller.

There is no work being performed on speculation. All my projects have a name attached – not just an address and “retail space” or “residential reno”. There is not one project where the end buyer/occupant isn’t on board from the onset.

In moments of weakness, when I am fed-up with the lack of quality in the House, and disturbed by the poor choices we get at most elections, I consider running and then realize that: 1) given the age of Little Shore, the salary is not worth the disruption to the home life (if one does the job well); 2) given the necessity to shut down my business, the alary is not worth the longterm economic risk; 3) because I do not “live for election,” I would not “live for reelection” either and would not shirk from talking straight to voters, and thus, since the voters have shown a desire to be lied to, I would face a steep uphill battle to get elected.

If I am someday persuaded that the voters really want what they say they want, and are willing to see a good person elected, I may someday throw my hat in the ring; however, as things currently stand, it is not worth putting myself up to be savaged (and isn’t that what happens in political campaigns?) and put my family through the disruption.

I trust there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who reach a similar conclusion every two years. Thus, we get the same “quality” representation each congress.

195 Yikes
whether the house sells or sits, its all the same. I don’t get your concern about pricing. If your neighbors didn’t sell and move your house would still be worth less than what you paid for it.

I’ve lived under socialized medicine for over 30 years now. The only way to survive (literally) is to have a private policy that pays over and above what the gov’t plan allows. Otherwise, doctors do the minimum and cannot afford to waste time on patients that reimburse below cost. What has developed in every country that has gone this route is a two class system. If private insurance is prohibited as proposed, I agree with Nom, treatment will be on a cash basis. Assuming you can get it. Once the effects of rationing and market forces on what areas of medicine can still turn a profit kick in you will have gov’t telling docs what areas they will be allowed to specialize in and where they will be allowed to practice (anyone remember Northen Exposure?) If medicare is so good why do people retain private insurance after age 62?

Insurance companies aren’t the culprit for high health care costs, they’re just the messenger everyone wants to shoot/blame. If all insurance companies were to work at zero profit, the cost of healthcare might TEMPORARILY decline 4-5%, because that’s their overall margin. Without insurers, costs would rise – because they have an incentive to push costs down, and they have better bargaining power over healthcare providers than individuals do.

In the short term, maybe the government could strong-arm healthcare providers into lower prices. But then the providers would have to cut costs. In a government dominated healthcare system, would costs really be cut? Think of your local school system in NJ – has the government gotten rid of layers of fat and bureaucracy, or added them? Has the government been able to attract the best and the brightest teachers to expand supply? No way.

If bureaucracy doesn’t cut its take, then I suppose the incomes of healthcare providers will have to fall. Does that encourage new supply to enter the field? No, of course not.

What healthcare really needs is the introduction of more market forces, not less. A Walmart – class operator who can take care of the routine stuff at low costs, using folks who are adequately competent but not brilliant, and are lower paid, to take care of everyones sniffles. People can pay for this stuff out of pocket – there’s no reason to even insure for this, it would be like getting haircut insurance.

Then, high end medicine, that really does require talent, get’s specialized people. Yes, it’s a premium product and expensive, and most people would want to insure against the possibility that they would need to use these facilities.

There are not an infinite supply of heart transplant surgeons. Whether the government gets involved or not. Pushing down their fees will not attract doctors, it will do the opposite.
One way to attract supply of this and many other healthcare suppliers, which would put downward pressure on price:
1)Reduce barriers to entry: cut regulations and certification costs on becoming doctors. Allow more immigrant doctors and make it easier for them to practice.
2)Reduce operating costs: cut regulations that reduce within-industry competition, reform malpractice law in a way that allows common competent process to be a defense against massive lawsuits.

13K is a cheapo plan. A blue chip Oxford/Aetna no referal type plan starts at 14,398 a year. 13K is a bad plan. your employer could pay an extra 200 dollars a month and let you trade up, but to save 200 he is playing with your health, you should strike.

No offense ever taken on this board. If I can lay off the trolls, I can lay off anything. Besides, a lot of what I put out there are spitters; ham-fisted psuedo-analysis, just above the level of snark.

And thanks for the compliment.

[181] shore

Remember under Clinton when Rosty and Co. passed a Cat Health premium requirement, and AARP mobilized geezers to protest and kill it? Think that they would like to have that back now?

“If you’re getting insurance through your employer, you get what they decide to offer. ”

Silera, once again, exactly. The current system not only divorces those paying from those consuming, but there is no decision (choice) at all. The government proposal compounds, not fixes, these errors.

The real solution for healthcare is to let the patient be the consumer. The patient needs to make the decision on coverage and what HE (not some third party employer or government entity) will pay for.

How about this idea, rather than turning coverage upside down for 300M people. Have the government in conjunction with industry develop twelve very specific healthcare plans reflecting various needs and stages of life delineating clearly the terms of coverage (high deductible catastrophic coverage only, low deductible full coverage, which diagnoses covered to which extent, timeline for when something is considered pre-existing, etc.). Have existing insurance companies offer these to the populace. Give each citizen that opts in a government credit equal to the tax break his employer gets to spend in conjunction with that person’s annual premium. Provide transfer payments to those people who want to opt in but currently aren’t covered by employers. Let them shop.

Rates will drop through the floor as insurance companies will essentially at that point be offering a commoditized product to consumers who are actually shopping based on price, unlike today. Choice is truly preserved and can be changed over time based on family circumstances. Plans will be clearly laid out regarding coverage so no bickering over whether something is covered/pre-existing or not. Admin costs may plummet and it will be the consumer that will benefit through lower premiums. Portability issues disappear.

Think of the end result as Burger King, Wendy’s, and McDonalds. While you may prefer one over another, they all offer burgers, chicken sandwiches, and nuggets, and all at nearly the same (cheap) price. And if fast food isn’t your taste, you can still head to NoBu.

See, I’m not anti-government. I just want something that is incentivized to work. And I have yet to see any monopoly, particularly a government run monopoly, work well for its constituents.

“If you close on a house today, you have (much like with a car) lost value the minute the ink is dry on the documents.”

Clot,

I still don’t understand why the industry does not offer gap insurance. Goldman can structure a product, make a mint. They can then short the derivative down the hall. Losses are borne by the new Resolution Bust Corp or AIG.

Goldman is a big winner, the buyer is protected, housing recovers, pant up demand comes out of the wood work and taxpayers eat the depreciated asset.

“One way to attract supply of this and many other healthcare suppliers, which would put downward pressure on price:
1)Reduce barriers to entry: cut regulations and certification costs on becoming doctors. Allow more immigrant doctors and make it easier for them to practice.
2)Reduce operating costs: cut regulations that reduce within-industry competition, reform malpractice law in a way that allows common competent process to be a defense against massive lawsuits.”

You will see all but the last point. The dems absolutely will not cut off the trial lawyers.

Barb,
No argument on two class system and rationing. Difference is we at least have access to medicine that is the envy of the rest of the world. In the name of fairness, there will be only one payer, one rate and it will be an incentive for a lot of people who might have entered medicine to chose another career and a lot of people, especially the aged, will die in the name of fairness and saving resources for the young. I’m just not sure I want a government making those decisions. I’ve seen the way it works here and the system encourages the old to die.

Barb,
Same here with father-in-law and it happened in Germany. The hospital amputated his foot without permission, then left him to die in his shared room because none of the staff cared whether he got his meds or ate. We practically had to live in his room to ensure wounds were cleaned etc.

Tosh- The huffing intervention was awesome. I hated myself for laughing through most of it. I am evil.

Re: Basement bedrooms. They shouldn’t be counted. Who would you put to sleep underground? Your MIL? Your black sheep kid? When I see a basement bedroom I immediately reduce the bedroom count on a listing.

With respect to individual claims, malpractice suits serve a useful purpose. Without frar of suit, too many companies, and even physicians, will feel free to cut corners in support of their own economic enrichment. Limiting pain and suffering awards will not meaningfully reduce healthcare costs and it will hurt people who have been thorougly sc-re-wed by malpractice, dangerous devices, etc.

Now, if one wants to say that class action suits, where the attorneys receive thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of times the recovery of the average class member are a problem in need of a solution, one might have a good point.

For the sake of disclosure- our friend rents our basement for 400 a month. I’d feel bad about it but he can’t rent an apartment for that amount and we helped him seal all the windows with plastic. I guess, an actual insulated basement bedroom would be an upgrade for him.

Im not the type to read a couple of NY times articles and then go around professing myself as an expert with an opinion.
But let me chime in here on a subject that i admittedly know very little about.

ive never had major need for medical services, thankfully. But i had an ongoing stomach problem for almost a year recently and they ran as many tests as possible. When i realized that the Doctors were rushing me through their day, and not spending one brain cell to try and diagnose my problem, i switched doctors. This happened three times and i would up at UPENN, where they actually did some thinking.
One bright old geezer finally told me to stop eating dairy for a month and i felt great and that was my whole problem. But that was after three other doctors ran 15 tests, including blood work, colonoscopy, endoscopy, MRIs and more…
One of those Doctors insisted that it was stress and told me to drink red wine and talk to a shrink. I practically laughed in his face and told him ive got less stress than anyone he knows.
They push you through the system like cattle. its probably not their fault but thats my impression.
I have probably some of the best insurance that a middle class person can get through employment, as i work for a large organization and they chose a very rich plan.

Recently, i went to dermatologist. He tells me that if he removes skin tags and they are not cancerous, they are not covered under insurance and cost 200 each but in order to test them he has to remove them. This is assenine.

My dad recently went through Chemo and passed only a year and a half ago. It was friggin hell for the whole family as you can imagine. The last thing we needed to deal with was insurance and the pills that cost $10,000 each! It was all paid for. His whole cancer treatments cost insurance almost 2 million over two years. But what if he didnt make a ton of money in his career. What does the avg Joe do?

This is the best health care system in the world? I doubt it.
Again, i know nothing about health care thankfully, but my experience tells me that there is room for lots of imrovement.

Beurocracy and politics and socializing medicine is all very frustrating but there is nothing more sickening that making trillions in profits off of people dying and getting sick. and then we expect these people to come up with cures to the cancers and diseases that feed their profits? the system in its current state seems flawed.

I dont know if govt is the way or not but im willing to try it. If it takes 2 months to get antibiotics than oh well. Maybe a bunch of people need to die because we cant afford the best health care system anymore anyway. im ok with that.

W.House on CIT: High standard set for any company aidBY Reuters
— 2:39 PM ET 07/16/2009
NEW YORK July 16 (Reuters) – The White House said on Thursday that President Barack Obama had set high standards for granting aid to companies, a day after CIT Group Inc said bailout talks with the government had ended.

“A lot of that had to do with whether or not they could show themsevles to be sustainable in the long term,” White House spokesman Bill Burton, when asked about the troubled lender, told reporters aboard Air Force One with the president headed for New York.

Singapore has managed to create a good health care system without resorting to a government monopoly. They have a multi-tiered system of private and public hospitals. The key is in the way that they fund it. It’s entirely funded by literally forcing employees to have a percentage of their paycheck deposited into a health savings account in which they are only allowed to use for health care. Private suppliers of health care are required by law to publish their prices for procedures. People are able to additional purchase catastrophic coverage through government or private means. The key is, the individual is in control of how their money is spent. Not some government bureaucrat.

Singapore spends less % of GDP on health care than every other system that is commonly bragged about by universal health care proponents. Other statistics that are commonly referenced such as infant mortality rate and life expectancy also show the superiority of their performance. They’ve shown that they can guarantee coverage to everyone and still maintain low prices through market mechanisms through this system. Of course, you’ll never hear proponents tout Singapore’s system, because it doesn’t involve a totalitarian state.

Side note…ever wonder why medical procedures like Laser Eye Surgery actively advertise their prices in newspapers and billboards around the country? It’s because they are allowed to function in a market where they are paid for in cash and free of government meddling. Not surprisingly, these procedures have become much cheaper, better, and more available over the past 10 years.

“Insurance companies aren’t the culprit for high health care costs, they’re just the messenger everyone wants to shoot/blame. If all insurance companies were to work at zero profit, the cost of healthcare might TEMPORARILY decline 4-5%, because that’s their overall margin. Without insurers, costs would rise – because they have an incentive to push costs down, and they have better bargaining power over healthcare providers than individuals do.”

A “non-profit” health insurance company owes my father and his partner over a million dollars in bill payments. They’ve refused to pay with no legal basis and my father has had trouble finding a lawyer that wants to go up against the arsenal of lawyers the company has ready for them. If this company won’t pay, my father will naturally resort to charging others more to cover his expenses. Insurance companies are one of the primary driving forces of destroying the health care industry.

Singapore has a universal health care system where government ensures affordability, largely through compulsory savings and price controls, while the private sector provides most care. Overall spending on health care amounts to only 3% of annual GDP. Of that, 66% comes from private sources.[1] Singapore currently has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world (equaled only by Iceland) and among the highest life expectancies from birth, according to the World Health Organization.[2] Singapore has “one of the most successful healthcare systems in the world, in terms of both efficiency in financing and the results achieved in community health outcomes,” according to an analysis by global consulting firm Watson Wyatt.[3] Singapore’s system uses a combination of compulsory savings from payroll deductions (funded by both employers and workers) a nationalized catastrophic health insurance plan, and government subsidies, as well as “actively regulating the supply and prices of healthcare services in the country” to keep costs in check; the specific features have been described as potentially a “very difficult system to replicate in many other countries.” Many Singaporeans also have supplemental private health insurance (often provided by employers) for services not covered by the government’s programs.[3]

Bill Gross of Pimco is the single largest bond holder in CIT, he is holding a conference call with other CIT bondholders on what to do. I would love to be on that call. Sad part is CIT is part of S&P 500 so nearly all 401K plans have it as equity and that puppy is getting wiped out. Even worse an S&P Index fund was required to hold it all the way from 60 dollars a share to 40 cents a share. I love indexing but those type of rigid rules are tough. Bill Gross only protects himself so it will be interesting to see why the other bondholders may care. Maybe they will be happy to lose money if Bill gets the spanked. He PO’d a lot of people with his GMAC stunt. He said get in bed with the fed and no timmy g and Sheila B are banging his head on the headboard while he gets the no-lube screwing.

I’m not sure if I’m reading the same proposals. No one is eliminating private insurance. The option of a public plan, requirement for standard comparable plans to enable effective comparisons and mandate for insurance are all being weaved together from various different committees.

What we’ve seen so far most likely won’t resemble the end product. There is a huge opportunity for both waste and a successful outcome. Probably, it will end up being a little bit of both. Much like everything else in life.

The status quo isn’t working, and it’s not going to change by willing it away. It is possible that a shore like idea of “catastrophic” coverage may end up being the first rung of a tiered coverage option that would be matched by private insurers.

So, everyone who wasn’t interested or needed upgraded coverage could select the most basic of insurance for their needs.

As my comment is in Mod, it is a bit moot, but there is one point that jumped out.

Spousal coverage: Eight percent of large employers use special provisions to limit election of coverage for spouses who have other coverage available and 6 percent are considering it for 2009. Among employers with 20,000 or more employees, 15 percent use these special provisions.

So when the hospital bills the fathers insurance for the birth will the company deny the claim if the wife has coverage?

Victorian…go beyond Wikipedia for your information. They regulate the prices in the public hospitals, not the private ones. The key point is, they don’t force the public to use their hospitals. It’s not a free market…it relies on market driven forces to control costs in the private sector.

Allowing bankruptcies to occur vs. rewarding failure with bailouts.
Stop inflation by dismantling the Fed and returning to the gold standard.
Encourage savings and liquidate debt.
Deregulate.
Give tax credits to those who take care of themselves, or the doctors who provide their care.
Cut government spending, especially on international endeavors. “We spend hundreds of billions of maintaining our empire around the world. Let’s bring that money home,” he says.

She is all Blair-Witch today. Even funnier, Bill Gross defied the Fed last week by betting the opposite will happen in regards to Japan rates as the US Govt wants, one week laster as CITs largest bond holder he gets spanked, maybe Sheila has a double donger so after she is done with timmy she can give Bill a ride on the blongia pony.

Where in the Constitution does it say you have the right to chemotherapy if you cant pay for it?

What has happened to self responsibility? If you dont have insurance, smoke 2 packs a day, and have heart attack or develop lung cancer too bad. You should just die like a man rather than put your family into bankruptcy.

Thats what a man would do. Now with most men in the NE and west coast being nothing more than chicks with dicks we have a healthcare crises. What crises? If you can pay for it you have it if you dont too bad.

NEW YORK — Securities sold by CIT Group Inc. with the help of a Federal Reserve lending program could lose their top triple-A ratings amid an increasing risk the commercial lender could seek bankruptcy protection.

Late Wednesday, Moody’s Investors Service said it may lower ratings on a batch of CIT securities backed by equipment leases that were sold to investors just over a month ago.

A chunk of the $954 million deal, called CIT Equipment Collateral 2009-VT1, was rated triple-A by Moody’s on June 10 and deemed to be eligible collateral under the Fed’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, according …

I think we are arguing over semantics over here. I am actually intrigued by the plan and will do some more research on it.

This is from some initial googling and seems a fair enough assessment. I am impressed by the way it works. Thanks for pointing this out.

More details on how Singapore’s system works:

* There are mandatory health savings accounts: “Individuals pre-save for medical expenses through mandatory deductions from their paychecks and employer contributions… Only approved categories of medical treatment can be paid for by deducting one’s Medisave account, for oneself, grandparents, parents, spouse or children: consultations with private practitioners for minor ailments must be paid from out-of-pocket cash…”
* “The private healthcare system competes with the public healthcare, which helps contain prices in both directions. Private medical insurance is also available.”
* Private healthcare providers are required to publish price lists to encourage comparison shopping.
* The government pays for “basic healthcare services… subject to tight expenditure control.” Bottom line: The government pays 80% of “basic public healthcare services.”
* Government plays a big role with contagious disease, and adds some paternalism on top: “Preventing diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tobacco-related illnesses by ensuring good health conditions takes a high priority.”
* The government provides optional low-cost catatrophic health insurance, plus a safety net “subject to stringent means-testing.”

“Where in the Constitution does it say you have the right to chemotherapy if you cant pay for it?”

The real question should be, for all the people that scream “what about when you get cancer?”.

Who in their right mind would want a right to chemotherapy? Lets see, we are going to give you drugs that kill cells in every major organ you have. We are going to give you a dose that will be just below the threshold that would kill you. We are going to repeat this for a few months. Basically, we are going to bring you extremely close to death. If you do manage to survive, which you probably won’t, you’ll have trouble walking, breathing, eating, wiping your nose, going to the bathroom, and anything else you can think of.

A right to cancer treatment is a right to make your body suffer the rest of your life, which is probably only a year or two at that point anyway. Unless your under 45, I wouldn’t recommend chemo to anyone.

The wife and I visited a Singaporean friend last month. She was talking about how the government was always telling the public that they’d better study, better save, better be competitive, plan for retirement, and take care of themselves, because the government wont!

A politician who said that in the US would be branded a cold hearted child strangler, then drawn and quartered.

Does anyone think maybe that simply doctors are compensated way to much for what they do.
example: The median expected salary for a typical Surgeon – Heart Transplant in the United States is $416,227. Perhaps insurance cost as much as it does because these are the kind ob bills that need to be paid for there services. Are we even allowed to ask this question or are we obligated to pay whatever they want. Do we pay them $800k a year if they want?

The primary reasons for Singapore’s health system performing so well on all counts are two facts.

1. You have the freedom of choice to seek out a health care provider (public or private) in a system with incredible openness and transparency.

2. You are in 100% control of how your money gets spent with in the system (rather than the government).

You don’t need a free market to have a successful system. But you do need personal responsibility and transparency on both sides. Eliminate the middle man, whether it’s the insurance company or the US government, and you’ll find that things work much better.

“Does anyone think maybe that simply doctors are compensated way to much for what they do.
example: The median expected salary for a typical Surgeon – Heart Transplant in the United States is $416,227. Perhaps insurance cost as much as it does because these are the kind ob bills that need to be paid for there services. Are we even allowed to ask this question or are we obligated to pay whatever they want. Do we pay them $800k a year if they want?”

Physicians are in an industry protected by the federal government. There are gross restrictions that prevent people from entering the industry on several levels. The simplest way to drive down health care costs is to stop giving physicians a monopoly on providing health care in basic areas. We teach 18 year old kids in the military to seal up gunshot wounds. I fail to see why a doctor needs to be required stitch up junior’s head when he tripped on the curb.

movedtovermont,
Assuming that average surgeon does 100 surgeries per year, that works out to $4000 per transplant. Or maybe it’s 40 at $10,000 each. Sounds like a bargain to me, given the importance of the performance.

While you’re at it, why not cap all incomes at say, $100,000? And set all prices of every product at, say, $10 each. Hope you don’t mind shortages, surplusses, and standing in lines.

Now on the front page of nj.com, Jon Corzine introducing Barack Obama. Witness Obama turn millions of NJ residents into Corzine loving pod people who cheer while your property taxes get increased to 20k a year.

Heart Surgeons are a highly specialized bunch. Their high salaries are justified. Pediatricians? Give me a break. They bring you into their office, weigh you, check your blood pressure, take your heartbeat, and write your name on a small blue sheet of paper when you have a cough.

The Congressional Budget Office director’s assessment that the existing health reform bills that have been released will actually raise health costs is offering Senate Finance Committee members a new challenge to address before they can roll out their own plan, lawmakers said July 16.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf’s comments show the need for a cap on the value of employer-provided health benefits that can be excluded from taxes, but that approach has been virtually ruled out by other lawmakers.

“The president is not helping us. He does not want the exclusion and that’s making it difficult,” Baucus said. Baucus also said the president’s proposal to limit the value of tax deductions for high-income households to the 28 percent bracket does not have support in the Senate.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said the bill is “far from” dead, but Elmendorf’s remarks illustrate the importance for Obama to reconsider the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored benefits.

Not the debate itself, but the fact that I began to consider our need for common terminology to describe minute variations in states of being. Think of it as Ben Franklin’s simplicity, versus our grasping for and creating phrases on the fly as our economy changes.

So, it made me think of music. Infinite variations are possible.

Do you know that musical variation rates increase over time like Kettle’s exponential issue?

You can listen to a chant from the 7th century, and one from the 13th and not hear the distinction…but if you listen to performance music from 1890, versus 1912, it sounds as if it were centuries apart.

Disclaimer: I know nothing of music. After bashing cf, I trotted over to the library and checked out “How to listen to and appreciate classical music.” It’s a college lecture by some Richard guy in California.

He makes a great case for specific terminology. I don’t think we have that right now, as it relates to our economy or our standards.

I just got invited to be on Bank of America’s “On-line Advisory Panel.”

Bwahhahahha.

Can you imagine? Me?

These doofuses just raised my credit limit without telling me (I snooped around on my accout) when I’ve told them about 20 times that I want each card limited to X for on-line use.
[My husband and I included a use of credit phrase in our Vegas marriage vows!]

These doofuses also just told me that they can raise my limit to loanshark rates on any existing balances…not that I have any, but WTF?

About that NJ real estate thing. I was at the shore last week and it was great – the best of what Jersey has to offer. The question is still at what price. Prices have come down somewhat but few bargains. Buying anything other than from a distressed seller is foolish. Buying a listed property at 10% or so below asking is just idiotic. The number of houses for sale, combined with stealth sellers waiting to jump in when prices stabilize, will keep a cap on rising prices for years to come. Prices will grind down in spurts but down they will go. BTW its very important for Mr Market (stock) that we hover the S&P around 900 with the promise of 1000 around the corner – it lifts our collective spirits. Everyone is happy when we hear in MSM the market was up today. This ensures we feed our 401k’s on a weekly/monthly basis without asking to many questions like: ”
Why is a dollar invested in the S&P 500 in June of 1998 worth just about a dollar today.”

So many are resigned to postponing retirement because their retirement plans are down 40%. They’re resigned to working longer to “get it back” – it never occurs to them that the remaining 60% is still in play and ripe for the taking also.

“The commercial paper market is vanishing and it will not come back. Indeed, it’s the end of the free lunch for corporations to be able to perpetually roll over short-term debt effectively achieving long term financing at short-term rates.

This decline in commercial paper is indicative of the fundamental shift in the risk appetite of banks, investors, and consumers alike. This secular shift in willingness to take on risk also applies to credit cards, home equity lines of credit, mortgages, lending in general and of course consumer spending in general.”

1000 points at least – “decline in commercial paper” is a lagging indicator you see – just like the debt laden consumer strapped to maintain his lifestyle of the “Heloc induced” last years. The true measures of the economy are Google’s and IBM “revenue numbers” and the ever impressive “beating analyst expectations”.

(ZH)- “Troubled mattress maker Simmons announced that it did not make it scheduled July 15th bond payment of $7.9 million. The company’s bondholders who are hoping for some hail mary bailout as millions of unemployed people upgrade from a hard floor to a memory foam king size are due for a big surprise, even with the extended forbearance they have granted the company. One can hope that the “certain conditions” to be met by July 31 include a clause of 100% equity conversion as that is the only return hopeful investors may hope to extract from the company.”

I visited Christchurch, New Zealand and can tell you it’s a majestic place to live. The cleansiness of the country; the friendliness of the people; the best darn cappuchinos (due to their unadulturated milk); picturesque landscapes; best darn toilet system (large pipes so nothing gets clogged).
Real estate is expensive. Long flight, total 22 hours from Newark. I’ve been contemplating the idea of moving there.
Enjoy!

The financial sector holds an exalted place in our society – that is why they are rewarded so handsomely. Their expertise in matters of finance for the good of the country is self evident. We need to make sure this talent doesn’t leave the industry by the way. Yes I know there are others who view “financial advisors” and investment strategists as salesmen to keep the game going but that would be silly. If we all just play along and contribute weekly at ever increasing prices when we withdraw at some point we’ll be ok and leave the last guy standing holding the bag.

311.Pol Clot says:
July 16, 2009 at 8:47 pm
“The commercial paper market is vanishing and it will not come back. Indeed, it’s the end of the free lunch for corporations to be able to perpetually roll over short-term debt effectively achieving long term financing at short-term rates.

pol clot: in all seriousness…I don’t know Mish’s work. I know that many people refer to his blog, so there must be some credible information that he analyzes and disseminates.

However, I know the CP market cold, and what he is positing here is pure garbage spewed by a hack.

Corporate Treasurers are constantly looking to diversify their borrower base and also to find the most strategic opportunities to hit market for the most efficient risk-adjusted long term borrowing cost. By definition, a CP issuer is a strong investment grade corporate credit.

With the flight to quality and the opening of debt capital markets out the curve (5 years and out), the attractiveness of terming out your debt in this environment (the rolling over issue), while locking in ridiculously cheap levels is unmatched in my career.

Bear in mind that you must be KO, GE et al. to do it. Further, a tremendous amount of CP is originated by credit card issuing banks.

So the answer to Mish’s allegation is more in th vein of: taking advantage of strategic long-term funding opportunities; and also an overall reduction in need of this particular financial instrument.

I apologize in advance for this anecdote. However, to the poster who I find to be a poor analyzer of financial market data, it is exactly these type of misguided and naive conclusions that cause me so much anger. You see facts posted…fine. Then you see the conclusions drawn and I am stunned at how completely wrong it is.

The culture in NYC got destroyed by the past 2 bubbles. Long standing businesses were sold off to people because of the hot real estate market. The real New Yorkers got squeezed out of the residential market by the new yuppies moving in because their rich daddy’s at the banks were hiring them and all their friends to sell tech stocks and mortgage backed securities. Also, the decriminalization of the entire manhattan area allowed all the sheltered yuppies with money to move in. NYC used to have attitude. Now, it’s just a bunch of people who have a lot of money (or at least thought they did) and like to spend 15 bucks on a bottle of bud.

I wonder what people who return to the old neighborhood think when it’s got a starbucks and a jamba juice on the corner of what used to be the local bar. I remember that Sopranos episode where they weren’t able to shake down any local businesses at one of their neighborhoods because the stores were all corporations.

Getting back to the inefficiencies of government, someone brought up NASA yesterday. I brought up the fact that NASA largely outsourced nearly all the work done on the moon landing. I can’t believe what I read today.

france saves loads of money on health care by letting tens of thousands of its old people die in heat waves. very frugal, that.

New Zealand is stunningly beautiful. but they *don’t* want immigrants, from anywhere, and there’s a lot of racial bigotry. nearly twenty years ago I was told by a New Zealander that they didn’t want anyone more coming in, since then the Chinese would swamp their country and ruin it. I asked her what was so special about her ethnic group, that they got to move in, and she didn’t have an answer naturally. if it were now, I’d tell her to check sciencedaily and see that at least half of the cool breakthroughs in the U.S. are made by a team of two; a Chinese guy and an Indian guy at some U.S. university lab. what’s NZ’s contribution? more wool?
Also, if you have relatives eg. in the U.S., it’s a hugely expensive drag to see them; I know someone whose kid and grandkids are there, and they spend a fortune on flights.

if you need to put an elderly relative in a nursing home, make sure that it’s in an area full of people who are religious but also value education. my aunt in MI, after years of home tending, put her MIL (who had dementia) in one in the Grand Rapids area. it was 2k a month, furnished like a lower middle class home but *clean*, and the people who worked there cared (it’s a Dutch Reform area). my FIL is paying 8k per month in PA for my MIL’s nursing home care (also dementia), and although the care is certainly good and the employees are kindly, it isn’t any *better* than the MI place.

I know a very nice couple from Australia (they are originally from Tonga) who work in our complex as home health aides. their teenage daughter has lupus, and she was told by the doctors in Australia that there was nothing they could do for her. so they brought her here (Silicon Valley), and got great treatment for her, and she is in HS and in remission and thriving. and this is despite the fact that they have truly crappy jobs. it is really horrible that so much of anyone’s healthcare, depends on where they are at a particular moment and whom they have to advocate for them.